Toastmasters Project # 8 – What is Lomography?

Posted on by bnajlis

I presented yesterday my speech #6 at Toastmasters here in Toronto. Project #8 (yes, I skipped two, but nobody says you have to give them in order) is about getting comfortable with visual aids. I think the key here is to use something else than your voice to present a subject.
I like to talk about Lomography, which is a passion of mine. So I added up 2 and 2 and gave a visual presentation about a visual subject like analog photography.
I felt really comfortable, I used not only a powerpoint (which you might think is old and boring) but also some cameras to take pictures of the audience during my presentation. That was fun! I think everybody was really engaged and some people even asked me more details about the subject after I finished.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my presentation for your enjoyment….

Edit: if you wanna read the speech, click here. That will open the presentation in an external window, from there you can see the presentation and read the presenter notes, which are the part of the speech that go with every slide.

I feel that I’m really improving a lot on presentation skills… let me tell you something: Toastmasters Works! As with anything in life, you get better the more times you do the same thing over and over again, and presentations are not different in any aspect. I also have to say that my new found confidence might have to be with getting to know better the people in our group. So I will have to find a way to put myself out of the comfort zone and deliver in front of total strangers.

About ‘Steve Jobs’ and the biography

Posted on by bnajlis

Steve Jobs passed away a couple of weeks ago and its biography, that was in the works for some time now, was released. I just finished reading it and enjoying it.
The first chapters about Steve’s childhood are good, and set up the ambiance for what comes next, a very interesting and rebel youth. All the middle part is what makes the book really valuable. The first Apple and ‘jail time’ at NeXT is very very good!
All the most recent times at Apple are well know history and there are not so many details you wouldn’t know if you’ve just been following the news all along. The last chapter could be a book on itself, it is an excellent summary of all of Steve Jobs’s values and it even has it in his own words.

The book is long and fun, some chapters are not so fun (probably his personal life wasn’t so exciting as his professional life) but it is very very easy to read. I would advice anyone to get a copy and read it, if you’re interested in recent technology’s history. It was very interesting to go in a travel through time and read about history so recent, and a cool way to remember.

One more thing, about Steve

I have a history with computers that goes back to my childhood, I started my career working with Microsoft and after many years I learned to discover and love Apple and its ‘think different’ more artistic approach. I still work with Microsoft technologies and feel really sad that they couldn’t learn much from Apple as they should have.
I feel deeply the loss of Steve Jobs as one of the great technology visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, and I think we’re gonna miss that industry guidance and path that Apple marked in the past years. Most of companies are not so daring and bold as Apple to innovate (Microsoft used to be but they lost that edge in the past years) so I really hope that someone can stand up to the challenge of being the next Steve Jobs.